


Beauty in the Wastelands

by thewickedverkaiking



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7333111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewickedverkaiking/pseuds/thewickedverkaiking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Rey finds not just a downed AT-AT walker that will be her home, but also a flower that brings her hope. I do not own Star Wars or any of the characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty in the Wastelands

She was just twelve when she found it. A downed walker lying in the sands of the Goazon Badlands. Find a shelter, the words of the other scavengers rang in her ears, the advice they had given her when she’d become too old to stay with them anymore. Find a shelter, and make it your home.   
  
She stepped up to it, running her little hand over the hot, sand-covered metal. Even on its side, it stood much higher than her petite, almost scrawny, little frame.  
  
Grasping her staff, her only weapon, firmly in her left hand, she surveyed the area around her. It was just sand dunes for miles and miles around. She was standing in the Goazon Badlands – one of the largest wastelands on this desert planet that was her home. Looking around, there was no life as far as the eye could see. No movement, no call of any animal. She began to worry. If not even a desert creature could live here, how could she? She was just a little girl, striking out on her own, just trying to survive and stay alive until they came back for her. This place was close to Niima Outpost, and the walker would make a hardy shelter. It could almost have been an ideal location. Except for one thing.  
  
It was all in the middle of a barren wasteland, where no one, where nothing lived.  
  
She trudged onwards, fighting down her growing feeling of despair. She had nowhere to stay tonight, she needed to find a shelter, and find it quick. From the sun’s position, she could tell that it was already several hours past noon; she only had a couple hours more before the sun went down and the temperature dropped rapidly, along with the chances of survival.  
  
Suddenly, something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A tiny speck of green. Surprised, she hurried towards it. Reaching it, she knelt down in the hot sand just to look at it closer. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was a tiny, green spinebarrel flower. Although its leaves were hard and prickly, and it was certainly not the prettiest plant, to her, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on.  
  
A flower.  
  
One delicate, fragile life. Blooming in the midst of a barren wasteland. In spite of the harsh conditions, it was growing, surviving, its beauty a testament to hard it had fought to live.  
  
Looking at the tender little plant, she felt tears gathering in her eyes. She could do it, too. She could survive here. Just like the spinebarrel, she would fight her way to the top, she would live here, because she could. Because she was strong enough. She would rise above the harshness of the desert. If a delicate flower could do it, why couldn’t she?  
With a new spring in her step, she returned to the walker. Opening the creaky emergency hatch on the side, she was greeted by a cool draft of air as she poked her head inside the dark interior.  
  
She smiled to herself.  
  
It would do.  
  
That night, Rey scratched her first mark on the wall of her new home. 


End file.
